Retrieve Function - Locked Records

Dispatch accounts provide the ability for mobile users to “Retrieve” previously sent data from the website, work on it, then send it back to the website.Imagine a situation where you have one mobile worker who fills out a form, and a different mobile worker who needs to approve the job record.Or imagine a field medicine scenario where different specialists need to add information to a patient record.

When a record is retrieved by a mobile device, a copy of the data record is placed on the mobile device where the mobile worker can review it, add to it, or make changes. When this data record is sent back to the website from the mobile device, the existing website record will be over-written with the sent data record. This happens at the time when the sent data record is received by the website.

Data records that have been retrieved by a mobile device are automatically “locked” on the website as shown below.Locking prevents the record from being retrieved by a different mobile user.Locking also prevents records from being edited on the website.This ensures that conflicting changes cannot be made at the same time.

The records are automatically “unlocked” when they have been sent back from the mobile device and received by the website.Once unlocked, the can be retrieved again or edited on the website.Records are also locked during the time when they are being edited on the website, and unlocked automatically when the editing process has ended.

Individual data records can be manually unlocked on the website by:

Selecting the desired records in the View Data tab.

Clicking the Data menu.

Selecting Unlock.

The website also provides an automatic “unlock” function for any records that have been locked over specified period of time.The default is 24 hours, but this can be changed in the Account tab by clicking the Change Unlock Timeout option as shown below.

Finally, the Retrieve function on mobile devices can be enabled or disabled centrally in the Customize mobile app user interface option in Account tab.Disabling hides the Retrieve button in the doForms mobile app so the function cannot be used.